today we're in Singapore and the food culture here is phenomenal we're really
excited to show you a bunch of Singapore's best local eats
Singapore is
a nation of eaters the food culture here will blow your mind this is our first
video from Singapore and we're travelling all over the island to bring you
the best local food, watch out for street food theatrics, delicious curry chicken
noodles and authentic Singaporean dishes in this four-part series we're hunting
down the country's most iconic local food from heritage recipes to unusual
dishes you don't want to miss this series
get ready for some mouth-watering food I'm Thomas and I'm Sheena and we're Chasing
a Plate, we hope you're hungry, let's eat!
like all of our content this video isn't gonna be about the fanciest food
or the most expensive food or the most flashy it's gonna be about the best food
so we're gonna find you the best food there is here to eat in Singapore
we've got a really really big day of eating planned but we are going to start with the
ultimate breakfast a really local traditional option we're outside our
first stop which is called Ya Kun and this place is the grandfather of
Singaporean breakfasts let's go and get some eggs and toast
we're starting with what is a really common breakfast all around the world, toast
eggs and coffee but these are done in the traditional Singaporean way so to start
off with we've got this coffee which is a really really dark brew it's just
coffee and a dollop of condensed milk so it's super sweet then we've got the kaya
toast now Y Kun is famous for its really crispy brown bread and then it's
grilled over charcoal and then you've got a smear of kaya which is coconut jam
and then a pat of butter it's looking really crispy and crunchy and then the
soft-boiled eggs look at that wobble so the whites are pretty much just set and
the yolks are gonna be super super runny
this place has been around since 1944 and it's
sort of credited with starting the breakfast phenomenon that is kopi and
toast but I've got to get a sip of this coffee into me it looks so rich and dark
ohhhhh that is super strong, it's got a really rich flavour
what they do is they roast the coffee beans
with sugar and margarine and it gives it an almost caramelised flavour
now these eggs they've got some white pepper and also some dark soy sauce on the
table so I'm going to add a bit of both and then mix them up a bit so chuck a
ton of white pepper on there I love that and then give it a bit of a mix and I
am just gonna go for the dip so I'm gonna get the kaya toast and then dip it
into the egg ohhhhh look at how runny they are so creamy
looking all right
boy that is so, so good
the toast is super crunchy and it's got such a great amount of butter, the butter is super creamy and then
the kaya is very sweet, kaya is made from coconut milk, eggs and sugar and its
flavoured with pandan leaves, pandan is a leaf that they use here a lot in
Southeast Asia to flavour things like rice and desserts it's got like a really
almost a vanilla type flavour it is so good those eggs are so creamy
so for a lot of people these eggs are gonna come across as really underdone and they
pretty much are they're just barely cooked really runny and really wet but
that's the only way they come, don't even think about asking for hard boiled eggs
cause you're not gonna get them, this is the Singaporean way
it's so simple
but really satisfying
that was a great start to our Singapore food tour but we've now come to a
different part of town we're gonna be hopping all around town for this video
and we are here to hunt down a curry mee
I'm totally wearing the wrong coloured t-shirt considering what we've just
ordered this is the famous Ah Heng curry chicken bee hoon mee now we have ordered
this bowl of curry chicken noodles with the yellow mee so these are the yellow
noodles we've got some poached Hainanese chicken there's some chunks of potato
there's some tofu puffs there's slices of fish cake I can also see some bean sprouts
in there and all of it is wallowing in this really coconut-y
looking broth now we have come to this stall because our friends who we really trust
in the taste stakes told us that this bowl of noodles is just epic they always
eat here when they come to Singapore so we just had to try it, we've heard the way
this stall cooks their chicken is really special and it results in really moist juicy
chicken they cook it the Hainanese way so basically they poach the whole chicken
in stock and then once it's cooked they dunk the whole chook into iced water and then they
just hang it to dry so it stops cooking immediately
and retains all its moisture and juiciness
this does look absolutely incredible
now I'll just say you might notice my voice is almost gone so I'm sick at
the moment so you probably won't hear me much today I'm gonna be more here for
the eating so let's just dive right in this looks unreal, the big pot of
curry up there is just bubbling away so they just pile it all in together I'm just
gonna try the chicken though by itself first because it's meant to be super
special
Oh
that is good
super soft and silky chicken and that curry has got a nice little punch to it its got a bit of
spice it's gonna clear my sinuses, get some noodles get in there properly with this
wow this is really good often I find this dish can be it's really
creamy the curry it's coconut based curry which this is but what I'm finding with
this is it has a sharp spice so has a real zing with the chilli which I absolutely love
sometimes it can be a bit more of a slow burn chilli but this one's a nice sharp kick that is
very good what can we get this time we've got the fish cake the tofu puff
and obviously more of those noodles the mee
this is is incredible and it's incredible because of its harmony
it's so well rounded, there's actually not a huge flavour just punching out that broth has just
been bubbling away and it's all come together so you're just getting this beautiful
creamy sort of coconut-y spice it is really good and it's
coating all those ingredients that are in there
I just have to talk about this I mean look at this it's a big fat piece of
chicken breast so it looks like probably the worst bit of the chicken it
looks like it's gonna be tough looks like it's gonna be flavourless however
it's juicy it's silky and it's full of flavour that is amazing I mean normally
give me the brown meat any day that dark meat with all that juice and burst of
flavour, that is expertly cooked
absolutely unreal chicken
that curry chicken mee totally hit the spot
now the original dish is served with rice noodles or bee hoon but we opted for
the yellow mee because we like the gruntier noodle that was delicious
well worth eating and that was a really bustling hawker centre it's what I
really love about Singapore it's a relatively expensive Asian country to
visit but when you get here you can eat really well for really cheap
our next snack is one of the most interesting dishes that you can find in
Singapore and it is rojak and rojak is a local fruit salad it's made up of a
hodgepodge of different ingredients and it's not like any fruit salad you've
ever seen before I'm super excited about this next stall
because it's reportedly one of the best in Singapore for rojak and it's in this
food centre right behind me
rojak means eclectic mix in colloquial Malay and this dish really is
a mishmash of different ingredients so let me talk you through what it's made up
of before I tell you why this one in particular is so famous so you've got
fruit there's pineapple there's vegetables there's cucumber and then there's
turnip there's also some deep-fried tofu it's been chopped up there's a
sprinkling of peanut powder all over the top there's some bean sprouts and then
there is also some you tiao which are deep-fried dough fritters
now locals say that this rojak is one of the best on the island and it
comes down to how meticulous the uncle is when he's preparing the dish he's taking
those you tiao those dough fritters and he's grilling them over charcoal so they
become really really crispy and every morning he makes his own chilli paste
from scratch he grinds and roasts his own peanuts for the sauce and then you
can see the sauce being made up to order so the sauce that everything is coated in
is made up of some delicious ingredients so it's got fermented prawn paste there
is lime juice there is chilli there is sugar what else did I see go in there, peanuts
so it's really really pungent and intense let's just taste this thing so
I'm gonna get some pineapple some cucumber and one of those dough fritters okay
it's such an odd dish it's made up of all these crazy ingredients that you don't
think will go together but the thing that binds it all is that sauce it is
of this world it is sweet, it's spicy, its tangy, it's savoury and then the pineapple
is really sweet, the cucumber is super crunchy and then those dough fritters really
held their texture so they're crispy, crunchy but then they're also soaked up
a bit of that sauce the more you eat the more the flavour just grows that sauce has
a really strong flavour of prawn and I find that a lot of rojaks are actually
just sweet so the sauce can be really one-dimensional but this is not this has
got a real depth to it, it's almost got a little bitterness to it
I can see why people say this is such a winner this is totally hitting the spot
the food scene in Singapore is really international anything you could
possibly want to eat you'll be able to find here but at the same time it's
really easy to find those heritage restaurants, restaurants that have
been serving the same dishes and food for decades we've come to Kampong Glam
which is the Malay and Muslim quarter of Singapore and we're here to visit one
such restaurant
we've come to Victory restaurant for their famous murtabak and murtabak
is a stuffed flatbread we have ordered two behemoths let me show you what we've
got so this here is the mutton murtabak so it is stuffed full of mutton and
egg and on top there is more mutton and more egg and then this one here is even
bigger it is the chicken murtabak so you've got the flatbread, layers of
flatbread and then this juicy saucy looking chicken and egg and on the side
we've got a bit of dal and also some cucumber with I think a bit of chilli
sauce over the top this restaurant has been here for over a
hundred years so a hundred years they must be doing something right and I love the
theatrics of watching murtabak being made they're slapping the dough on that
bench and they get so thin it't just paper thin before they put that filling in there
it's just awesome to watch but I've gotta dive right and I'm gonna get a huge
piece of this mutton murtabak to start off with so you can see the different
layers there so you've got a layer of egg, mutton and then the flatbread all in there
all right
that's really good the dough is really light and overall the mouthful was
really light the mutton is not overly spiced
full of flavour though you can really taste the meat I think with the next mouthful
I'm gonna get a bit of this dal, so it's really thick dal
put that over the next mouthful
alright and let's go again
hmm alright, that's better, the dal adds a creaminess
a little bit of spice to the murtabak and it makes it a
little bit more moist I suppose the murtabak itself is not dry but the
dal definitely adds to it
let's give this chicken murtabak a go, holy moly
it is massive all right I'm gonna go for this huge juicy middle bit
okay the chicken murtabak is my favourite out of the two
the chicken is so moist and tender it's like juicy there's a lot of onions in there
they've really caramelised and they're very sweet
and overall it just has more flavour a really sort of like tongue tingling
spice just the barest of spices but you can really taste it
and the prata dough is so soft there's little sort of crispy bits in there where it's
been enough on the pan but overall it's quite soft and what's great about these
guys is that they make all their prata dough in house as
well as their spice mix so they haven't outsourced it to a third party and you can taste the
quality but definitely the chicken murtabak for me
due to my almost total lack of voice I've not had a chance to say much today
but I agree with Sheena this chicken one is incredible it's spicy, it's sweet, it;s
juicy it is really good I love them both
like Sheena but the chicken one wins hands down for me
awesome, awesome murtabak and an incredible day of eating here in Singapore